Tag: writing process

Love by the Book by Jessica George (Literary Fiction)

Writing: 5+/5 Characters: 5+/5 Story: 5

Remy is a writer struggling to produce a second book at the same time as her ten-year, very close, friendship circle is dispersing leaving her jonesing for a new friend. For her, the love she has for her close female friends is far more important than the promise of sexual relationships with men. Simone is an introvert who loves her job as a Year 1 teacher, but also loves the lifestyle provided by her second, and rather secret, job. When the two meet in a kind of platonic “meet cute,” it’s not at all clear that a friendship could be the result, but it does in fact pave the way for an incredibly rich book about female friendship. The best descriptions come straight from the book itself: “Great food, the complexities of female friendship, and the romantic nature of platonic love” and “adult friendship, and the beauty, intimacy, and unappreciated joy of platonic love are explored through the lens of the moral ethics of storytelling.”

I love that the book fully delves into so many issues of importance to women. Real issues such as whether or not have to children; how to tease apart your own moral compass from the judgment of your community; how to define selfishness and is it necessarily a bad thing; and how to manage (which is actually required) a tight friendship group. The idea of platonic love applied to friendship without attraction was a real eye-opener for me. Something I think I’ve always longer for, but honestly could never have even described. These characters are beyond rich — they are so much more interesting and complicated than the typical stereotypes and behavior groupings we get daily from fiction and the beastly news. I found the discussions of life philosophies to be penetratingly insightful (as did the characters themselves). I was able to dive into so many topics that I simply hadn’t spent much time exploring. One of my favorite lines is when one character is exposed to another’s viewpoint and says: “I’ve never really seen life that way. The idea of taking from it as opposed to merely accepting what you receive.” Think about that from the perspective of typical expectations of women!

Jessica George is a startlingly beautiful writer. A large vocabulary precisely placed into perfectly crafted phrases depicting the intricacies of human interaction and self-reflection. I enjoyed the meta-fiction circularity detailing the intricacies of Remy’s writing process while struggling to write the very book that I believe we end up reading. Masterfully done, engaging, and surprisingly unconfusing! I loved her first book — Maame — just as much (see my review here).

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on April 7th, 2026.

Amy Among the Serial Killers by Jincy Willett (Audio Book / Mystery)

Writing: 5/5 Characters: 4/5 Plot: 4/5 Enjoyment: 5/5

Great title, right?

The titular “Amy” is a 70-something author and ex-writing coach — a bit of a hermit but with a soft spot for some of the members of her last workshops. Carla — an ex-child star is now the owner of “The Point” — a writer’s retreat in La Jolla. Carla is quite possibly Amy’s favorite ex-student (possibly because she saved Amy’s life in the first book — I won’t spoil any more of that as I haven’t read it yet either!). When one of the Point’s writers turns up dead, the cops wonder if the murder is connected with a spate of other local killings — hence the serial killers (note the plural!) in the title.

This is not your typical mystery. It is funny in an insightfully wry style. It is a book by and about writers and writing and is FULL of back stories, stories in progress, story planning, random story thoughts, etc. — creating a kind of fractal story universe that is somehow never confusing. I put this down to some high quality writing — excellent pacing and structure and a truly delightful use of vocabulary and phrasing. Because the characters (who are writers) are often thinking or talking about writing, there are even some lovely and humorous discussions of words themselves which I enjoyed thoroughly. The mystery aspect is good — I did figure it out a little before the characters did, but it was certainly a surprise. The story was nice and twisty and kept me well entertained. Some interesting character reflections as well, not usually present in genre books.

Audio books take more time (for me) than reading the print would, and often that means I get a little bored in parts because I can’t skim. This did not happen at all during this 13 hour audiobook which is saying quite a lot.

So what didn’t I like? While the narrator does a fabulous job with all of the different voices and her pacing and speech clarity were perfect, I did not love her natural voice — or at least the one she uses as the narrator in addition to slightly modified versions for most of the younger characters. It’s what I call a Millennial version of the old Valley Girl speak: lots of mid word tonal shifts and a slightly whiny feel. I think I’m just showing my age here because this does seem to be a popular speech pattern for younger people in some TV shows. I got over it because it was just so entertaining, but it did irritate me for a bit.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this audio book in exchange for my honest review. The audio book will be published on August 23rd, 2022 — the print book is out already!